make sure your hose is not froze

[qzpm150]

making some beer and going to chill the wort and my hose is froze. currently trying to pack snow around the kettle to cool it, dam this sux.

 

[NivekD]

Get out the blow torch....

 

[qzpm150]

hmmm

 

[reinstone]

Had to pull my hose out with a pair of pliers it's so cold here!!!

 

[NivekD]

When they built my house, they put a bib in the garage...I thought it was strange but now I love it.

 

[qzpm150]

*note to self, when building a garage to that* on the other hand when packing snow around the kettle it also works well to warm your hands up.

 

[qzpm150]

 

[nukebrewer]

making some beer and going to chill the wort and my hose is froze. currently trying to pack snow around the kettle to cool it, dam this sux.

Had that happen to me about a week ago and I learned my lesson. When I brewed today I had my hose going at just a trickle to maintain flow so it wouldn't freeze.

 

[RM-MN]

Unfortunately snow is a poor way to chill your wort. As soon as it melts a little there is a nice insulating space around the kettle. You would have to be there constantly packing the snow to make it work. Much better to set your kettle in a tub of water and dump snow into that tub. As long as you have snow mixed with the water you can be assured that the water is cold and it makes constant contact with the kettle. That's the method I use any time I have snow available.

A immersion wort chiller would be nice but at -25, its really hard to keep the hose from freezing. You can't move the hose or it will break and you end up with a skating rink where you intended to walk.

 

[qzpm150]

I did end up bringing it inside and doing that. Got it cooled and took my gravity and put it in my fermenter. Then i forgot what my gravity was and realized this morning that my yeast is on the counter still. ugh

 

[GrogNerd]

froze hose happened to me 2 weeks ago

 

[RM-MN]

I did end up bringing it inside and doing that. Got it cooled and took my gravity and put it in my fermenter. Then i forgot what my gravity was and realized this morning that my yeast is on the counter still. ugh

If you had decent sanitation it will be fine. Pitch the yeast and don't worry about the gravity. It isn't critical to know the starting gravity (heck, I don't even bother most of the time) unless you just have to know the alcohol produced. It's the final gravity that I'm concerned with. The software will calculate what range this should be in and when I'm ready to bottle, I check to see that mine is in that range or lower so I know I didn't get a stuck fermentation which could lead to bottle bombs when it restarts in the bottle.

 

[JonM]

I had all of my quick releases and my starsan spray bottle freeze yesterday and had an idea as I was cleaning up - I think i'm just going to put those things in a plastic bag and put them in the mash tun with all the warm spent grain. That probably won't work with a hose, but it'll do the trick for small things that can freeze.

 

[RM-MN]

I set my tub of water outside with about 30 minutes left in the boil and when the boil was done it had a little skim of ice on it. I started with leaving the tub longer but had to break the ice before I could even set the boil kettle in it.

 

[qzpm150]

I was able to get a gravity before pitching and it came in at 1.058, three point higher than expected but i think that is because of the starter. As far a sanitation goes im usually careful but last night i had to much homebrew while homebrew. i think some of the snow got into the wort when I was trying to cool it. oh well i see how it goes.

 

[biochemedic]

Get out the blow torch....

Ha! I did this last week when I was brewing and it has (just) gotten really cold down here in NC...I fortunately figured out very early on that things were frozen...I wrapped the hose around the perimeter of my burner stand to warm/thaw, but did indeed bust out the blowtorch on the faucet and pipe! Once I got things loosened up, just as someone else suggested I ran it on a slow trickle until it was time to cool....

As an (?) upside, it was the first time I actually over cooled (and I did it in record time)!

 

[PhelanKA7]

I learned a long time ago to store my hose in the garage and bring it out when I need it. You can still get it flowing though if you walk the length of it bending it back and forth to break up the ice enough for water pressure to push it out.

 

[RM-MN]

I learned a long time ago to store my hose in the garage and bring it out when I need it. You can still get it flowing though if you walk the length of it bending it back and forth to break up the ice enough for water pressure to push it out.

The last day I brewed last week the inside of my garage was -10. I don't think that would have helped my hose much. Oh, it was -35 outside my garage.

 

[Chowe]

I always make sure I drain all of the water out of my hose before I put it away, but I have had it freeze in the past when I must have not been successful getting all of the water out. I found that taking the entire frozen hose and placing it in the hot tub for two or three min will fix the problem.

 

[PhelanKA7]

The last day I brewed last week the inside of my garage was -10. I don't think that would have helped my hose much. Oh, it was -35 outside my garage.

Well that's what you get for living in a tundra!

 

[Spartan1979]

In the winter, I drag the hose inside the garage the night before I brew.

 

[TNGabe]

Motto of conscientious pimps in Northern climes?

 

[JonM]

My March pump froze up a couple brews ago and I had to use SWMBO's hair dryer to thaw it out. Now I bring the pump inside when it's not in use.

 

[dfc]

I did end up bringing it inside and doing that. Got it cooled and took my gravity and put it in my fermenter. Then i forgot what my gravity was and realized this morning that my yeast is on the counter still. ugh

Well, you can still check your gravity at least...

 

[pellis007]

Happened to me today. Thankfully I had a spare in my shed which hasn't had water in it in years, so it was nice and dry. When I was done chilling my wort, I hooked up the hose to the air compressor and blew it out for next time.

 

[pelipen]

Happened to me today. Even the one I thought I drained was plugged. Ended up soaking it in a bucket of hot water and unplugged it. So much for zero minute addition. Hate living here. Leaving San Diego... Huge mistake.

 

[GrogNerd]

egads... leaving San Diego is bad enough, but PHILLY?

 

[Paulgs3]

Thanks to the hella weird weather we have been having with temp variations from 5 degrees to 60 degrees I have been able to sneak in a few brews without frozen water.

I am drawing out a pond pump idea to recirc and add snow to the reservoir bucket. Only kink I foresee is I use a CFC and even with its warmer ~50ish I get a huge drop in wort temp when I do the sanitizing pre-run I lose boil for a good 3-4 minutes.


Hmmm.... just had an idea, I could pre-boil while mashing.....genius!

 

[RoadKing]

I have a potable water hose that I only use for brewing. It gets rolled up and stored in the garage.

 

[porto88]

happened to me a couple weeks ago, I decided to no chill the batch, worked great, maybe a little more bitter than it should have ended up, but was still very good